AN: In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, Eustace and Reepicheep go ashore and are captured by slave traders. Caspian is sold to Lord Bern before they reach the slave market, and he and the sailors make a show of greater strength than they have and abolish the slave trade in the Lone Islands before the others even make it out of the slave market the next day. But what if Lord Bern had not happened upon Pug and his men on the way to the market and Caspian had been sold to a less compassionate master? Bookverse (obviously, since the movie hasn't come out yet lol), but I've got the actors from the movies in my mind. Yum, dark-haired Caspian! :P
"Keep moving, there," the overseer said in a bored voice as Caspian marched up the long column of the back stairs to the main house, his hands tied behind his back and a guard on either side. He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. His hands had been tied for the better part of a day, with only a respite while he was actually up on the platform, being shown to the crowd by Pug.
"Can't have you looking disobedient, can we?" Pug had smiled at him, showing his rotting teeth, as he cut Caspian's ropes and pulled him up on the platform. "Bad for business."
He had earned the ropes in the first place by defending Lucy. Lucy was certainly a brave woman—they hadn't called her Lucy the Valiant for nothing. Having been captured by slavers and thrown in a smelly pit below a slave auction stage, she had only shown anxiety about the fates of Edmund and Caspian. They had sat on either side of her, huddled close together against the wall as the light faded, and had made her sleep between them overnight—Reepicheep sleeping at her head, though his sword had been confiscated.
But though Lucy made no complaint about her own lot, her companions were alive to the particular risks she ran as a young, pretty female slave. So when one of Pug's men had offered her insult the morning of the sale, Edmund and Caspian had leapt immediately to her defense.
"Aren't you a pretty maid?" the man said, pinching her chin and smirking down into her face. She blanched in the dim light of the slave pit—the first fear for her own person she had shown—and tried to recoil from his beery breath. "Easy, Sweetheart," he leered, leaning in even closer. "I'm just evaluating the merchandise."
"Get your hands off her," Caspian and Edmund ordered as one. The man looked up, surprised.
"Seems you have defenders, eh Sweetheart?" he said, eyeing the two young men as if deciding whether they posed any sort of threat. The other slaves all seemed to have scurried into dark corners, avoiding any sort of involvement in whatever might be coming next.
"Yes she does," Reepicheep spoke up from the ground. "Unhand the lady."
The man did, but only in order to lean his hands on his knees to see the large mouse more easily. His unsteady balance made it clear that he'd had nothing but beer for breakfast. "Are you going to stop me, Signor Rat?" he said. Before Reepicheep even had time to defend his honor as the Captain of the Loyal Order of the King's Mice, the slaver went on, "She's no lady: she's a slave, and I can do with her whatever I please."
In his slightly intoxicated state, the man didn't even see Caspian's fist coming. The slaver, already off his balance, was laid flat on his back in the dirt. Edmund caught Lucy's arm and pulled her behind him, shielding her from the notice of the two other guards, who came running down to deal with the commotion. Caspian, who felt he had made his point with the first blow, didn't attempt to fight off the two men, who were sober and much bulkier than he. They caught his arms behind him, as if to hold him back from further attack on his opponent, who was unsteadily climbing to his feet, nursing his jaw.
"What's all this commotion?" Pug asked lazily, coming down a few steps to see what the trouble was. "Jacques, can't you keep them in order?"
"Yes, sir," Jacques said stubbornly, still rubbing his jaw. When Pug had gone back topside, he turned to glare at Caspian. "Tie his hands," he said to the men. "You'll soon learn," he added threateningly to Caspian himself, "that a slave who don't respect his superiors is destined for… hardship." He gave a grin that was more of a grimace and turned to follow his two comrades, who were heading up the stairs. "Oh, and one more thing," he added, turning back, and struck Caspian hard across the face.
Lucy, who hadn't made a sound when she was threatened or when her friend had knocked down her assaulter, made a squeak of surprise and dismay as Caspian staggered to one knee.
"I owed you one," the man growled, stomping up the stairs.
"Oh, Caspian!" Lucy exclaimed, shoving aside Edmund's shielding arm. She produced a handkerchief she had miraculously managed to keep up her sleeve this entire time, and even more miraculously managed to keep clean in the dirt of the slave pit, and dabbed gently at Caspian's bloody lip. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Lucy," Caspian smiled at her.
"And don't call him by his name," Edmund whispered. "We can't let anybody know who he is."
Caspian himself had barely remembered this detail in time when his purchaser, the owner of a large farm, asked for his appellation on leaving the slave market. The young king was distracted, looking for his friends in the crowd. Lucy had been bought as a housemaid and Edmund as a field hand, like himself. Reepicheep, whom the slavers had considered too difficult to keep hold of and had stuffed into a birdcage bought from another merchant at the market, had been sold as entertainment to a rich, snobbish woman in fine clothing, and Pug was still trying to find a buyer for Eustace, whose sour expression and total lack of upper body strength seemed to be against his chances of being purchased. Caspian didn't care about Eustace, except that he was Queen Lucy's kinsman and she seemed to feel some responsibility for him. The others he was rather more worried about.
"Your name, boy!" the farm owner (Caspian would never think of him as his master) repeated, shaking him a little. Caspian started.
"Cas—" he began, and caught himself in time.
The owner waited, and then raised one eyebrow. "There more to that name?" he asked sardonically.
Caspian shook his head. "Nope. Just Cass."
One of the owner's henchmen cuffed Caspian in the back of the head. "That's 'No, Sir," he reprimanded, and they were off.
At the edge of the owner's land, the man had gone toward the front stairs of the capacious house, and Caspian and his bodyguards had moved toward the back. "Take her to Sarielle," the owner called over his shoulder.
As they approached the door, Caspian could hear the sound of voices, and glanced up. The face of a young woman peered down on them through an open window, and from it emanated the noise of a large number of people hard at work on some complicated task.
It was this room that the men made for upon entering the building. It seemed to be a kitchen, with two large fireplaces, tables covered in chopped vegetables and slabs of meat, and bushels and crates of produce in a large pile against one wall. It was also full of the bustle of about fifteen slaves preparing a complicated dinner for their master.
"Nolina, is that soup almost ready?" a woman's voice called out over the hubbub. "And Tarien, make sure those capons don't burn!"
"Sarielle," Caspian's captor said, and the woman turned around. Caspian was surprised to see that the owner of that commanding and composed voice was young—about his own age, though her expression was mature. She had an air of control and composure, which lent a slight nobility to her otherwise plain features: unremarkable light brown hair, a straight nose set in a narrow face, and indeterminately colored hazel eyes.
"A new field hand," the guard said. "His name is Cass. The Master says to find him a place to bed down."
Sarielle nodded. "Thank you, Gerius."
"Aren't you going to thank me?" Gerius said in a menacingly friendly tone, clapping his ham-like hand down on Caspian's shoulder. Caspian made no answer and stared straight ahead. "At bow to your new house mother," Gerius coaxed, nodding toward Sarielle. Sarielle, though her chin was still raised and her face expressionless, was carefully avoiding eye contact with all of them.
"Kneel and thank me for bringing you up here," Gerius whispered in Caspian's ear.
Caspian fought the urge to wrinkle his lip in disgust. "Not likely," he muttered.
"What was that?" Gerius said loudly, giving him a little shake. The noise in the kitchen grew significantly quieter, as everyone studiously kept their eyes on their own tasks and their ears open for trouble. Caspian didn't reply, mirroring Sarielle's own blank expression.
Gerius's fist flew out of nowhere into Caspian's solar plexus, knocking the air out of him and doubling him over. Gerius's two henchmen on either side turned him around and threw him face-first into the multi-layered stack of full vegetable crates in the corner.
"Now that's more like it!" Gerius exclaimed with satisfaction as Caspian knelt on the floor, gasping for breath. Gerius caught up a broom from the corner and brought the rough-hewn handle down hard on the King's shoulders—five strokes.
"And the next time you show insolence to your betters, I'll repeat that dance with a whip!" Gerius added. "Sarielle," he said, nodding to the kitchen overseer, who still stood motionless, watching the proceedings.
"Gerius," she nodded back, her voice still carefully neutral. The rest of the slaves still kept their near silent concentration as Gerius and his henchmen left the room, the only sounds those of food preparations and Caspian's gasps for air.
TBC
AN: I wasn't planning on publishing anymore fanfiction on her, but fate had another idea. I was awoken by thunder at four this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Finally at 5:30 I gave in, grabbed my laptop, and started typing. I'm not making any guarantees about this story—I'm currently studying for my comprehensive exams, and being a grad student, I probably won't have much time once September rolls around. But so many details of this story came to me between the hours of 4 and 5:30 this morning that I just had to start typing. :)